AP told me a few weeks ago that she ALWAYS intended to have a prologue from the moment she decided to write the story. Why? Because it is concieved of as a series of flashbacks, where the drive of emotional build has precedence over chronology. Hence the placement of Dozy embrace, the urination: FLASHBACKS. This is thoroughly modern AND completely classic--instead of those magnificent speeches, she uses mental flashbacks. A work for OUR time, not the 5th century BC. And the result was a new sort of work, one which changed the very nature of the short story in the English language. The prologue sets the tone, allows the reader to understand he/she is about to enter a total desolation while setting the construction of the tale of J & E in granite.
It's over before it starts.
Now, I hate jack's death. But it was necessary. AP wept over her characters but KILLED JACK OFF.
Why? Because she had to, if she was to succeed in her goal..
Ennis in the prologue is of an indeterminate age, because that's what she wanted us to think--no easy answers, we make our own. The ultimate reaction comes from the heart, the mind, and the experience of the reader.
OR viewer.
AP left a spark of hope for the Ennis of her prologue. Ang lee left a spark of hope for the Ennis of his epilogue. Get the connection here? To translate the book to film he put the emotions and hope-spark of the prologue into an EPILOGUE. One a mass audience would get, while preserving the essence of the story.
This is very interesting, but what I don't understand, then, is why she consented to have it published in the New Yorker without the prologue.
I am an Editor in real life, and we edit author's contributions before publication, and of course, they have the opportunity to rebut our changes. I don't work at the New Yorker but I would assume Annie was afforded the same opportunity. If the prologue was so important and essential, why didn't she argue, or argue harder if she did argue, to have included?
The first version of the story I read was the New Yorker version--not in 1997 but last fall when people were starting to talk about the movie after it won at the Venice Film Festival. The New Yorker still had the story online at that time. I read the story, several times, then saw the movie and after that, read the "Story to Screenplay" version of the story, which does have the prologue. I have said many times that I preferred the New Yorker version...precisely because I did not read it as a flashback. Now, reading your post, thinking about the two versions of the story and the movie, I may need to change my entire worldview on BBM. Hmmm....
To your other comment, regarding your bafflement over Jo's comments...I think there are people out there, who despite countless viewings of the movie still see it in only the most superficial way, ie, as a love story between Jack and Ennis. They, for whatever reason, perhaps because it is too painful, seem unable to get to the deeper heart of the matter of what this story is about and what it can teach us. But we are all just human and the story touches us all in different ways.
Leslie
Topic: Taking Chances, by E. L. Van Hine and L.H. Nicoll (Read 3169933 times)